Recently I've been taking my views on religion more seriously. I haven't posted here a lot yet but in my intro I ran through the fact that I'm an atheist in a family so moderately catholic that I'd go so far as to call them mild. A few weeks ago I made the decision to attempt to remove my name from the church, and today I made a start. I spoke to my mum (it was her decision to have me baptised and I felt the need to discuss this with her beforehand) and she was really cool about it. She said she'd known all of this about me since I was a kid. We had a good chat about it all. Sweet.

The next step was ok too. I spoke to a member of the local Catholic Diocese on the phone, and he said I just needed to go to the church where I was baptised. I can imagine this would be an issue for a lot of people who are far away from the place they were baptised, but luckily I'm heading home to see the folks soon and it's a 5 minute drive from them. So all of that was ok for me, and although he was a bit cold on the phone the guy was totally helpful (unless he was just fielding my call), and this is something I really want to do...

So I guess my question is why do I feel so frickin' terrible?

Cam

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“Anyway, if you stop tellin' people it's all sorted out afer they're dead, they might try sorting it all out while they're alive. ”

I mentioned Catholic guilt to a Jewish colleague once and she just laughed. Your pathetic catholic guilt is feeble compared to our monumental Jewish version, she said.

As for feeling frickin' terrible, well..... I have had nothing but contempt for the Catholic religion since I broke away in the 70s, and the target has been the clerical leadership. But when I think about the ordinary Catholics, like my very mild, moderate and not strictly observant relatives it's different. And sooooo many people who tick Catholic on the census form are also selective cherry-pickers, I think a lot of them a much closer to the atheist side of the spectrum than they are to the believers. Thinking about the associated ethnic background (vague Irishness on my part) also adds to the sentiment.

I think I'd feel bad about leaving all that behind, but not the dogma and the clerical authorities who lay it down. That's what you're resigning from.

You're not leaving the good bits behind, you're just picking fewer cherries than the people who are not formally quitting the religion. And hopefully more of them will learn from your example and leave those rotten ones on the tree.

Last edited by stylofone; 10th April 2015 at 05:55 PM.
Reason: fixed typo

I was raised in an atheist household and don't know about religious guilt, so this could all be bollocks, but

If you are feeling really bad about it you know you don't have to do anything. I assume you aren't supporting the church in any meaningful way, you are just on their books.

The most important thing here is how this affects you. If you think you can't live another minute on the books of a religion because principles/honour, then resign. If resigning is going to make your belly writhe and keep you awake then don't. Pick whichever line causes you the least stress. No-one worth their salt is going to care either way. Your family certainly don't, they love you.

You didn't have to send the Tooth Fairy a letter to tell her not to call any more.